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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30115479">the lesser evil</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightdaze/pseuds/nightdaze'>nightdaze</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>halfway between today and yesterday [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Heroes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, pre-relationship faye/silque</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:02:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,248</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30115479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightdaze/pseuds/nightdaze</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Faye has a habit of wandering. Berkut does too.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Efi | Faye &amp; Berkut, Efi | Faye &amp; Silque</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>halfway between today and yesterday [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2054334</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the lesser evil</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i started this months ago and only just finished it. the series is... actually a series now! where will we go from here? uh, let's find out in another year, probably.</p><p>faye's ending blurb in sov was my inspiration for this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Outside the castle, the air is cool and still. Darkness fell hours ago, and the creatures that rest in the daytime are now the only things roaming the grounds, and even they are near-silent. A single flap of wings here, a crunch of leaves there -- and little else.<br/><br/>Berkut, these days, is drawn to the nocturnal world. He doesn’t like his dreams.<br/><br/>There’s a part of him that hopes his other self will emerge from the woods in which he lurks and he can run him straight through.<br/><br/>It wouldn’t take, but it’d feel good.<br/><br/>Revenge for the future Rinea. Punishment for his future self.<br/><br/>A light breeze kicks up. In his peripheral vision, Berkut sees the billowing of a dress, and he snaps his head in its direction.<br/><br/>An unmoving silhouette stands in the darkness, and only when the moonlight breaks through the cloud cover does he realize that he recognizes this figure, even though their back is turned.<br/><br/>The stubborn farm girl.</p><p>“Gods damn you, I thought you were a phantom,” he grumbles, stalking up to her. “You’re the very picture of one.”<br/><br/>She looks back over her shoulder with a mild expression.<br/><br/>”…Oh,” she says. “Hi, Berkut.”<br/><br/><em>Don’t ‘Hi, Berkut’ me,</em> he’s tempted to say, but the distant look in her eyes gives him pause.<br/><br/>”What are you doing out here?” he asks. “Should you not be asleep?”<br/><br/>”Shouldn’t you?”<br/><br/>Berkut makes an annoyed ‘tch’ noise. Yes, that’s true, but--<br/><br/>”It’s more dangerous for a girl like you to be wandering alone in the dark,” Berkut counters, and while he knows she can fend for herself, he decides it’s fair enough to say when she isn’t presently armed.<br/><br/>”Yeah, I guess,” comes the non-committal answer. “I just needed some air.”<br/><br/>He can believe that. He won’t claim to know her well, but there’s an odd aura about her tonight.<br/><br/>”Keep closer to the castle,” he says with a frown, and she smiles faintly.<br/><br/>”I knew you weren’t all bad.”<br/><br/>He hasn’t got a reply for that.<br/><br/>”Why are you up?” she asks.<br/><br/>”…I also needed air,” he says. “The castle is crawling with busybodies at all hours.”<br/><br/>It’s not quite a lie, and Faye accepts it.<br/><br/>”I guess you wanna be alone now,” Faye says, and Berkut hesitates. This is the same girl that pestered him so incessantly?<br/><br/>Her eyes aren’t -- right.<br/><br/>Not the eyes of the possessed.<br/><br/>But wrong somehow.<br/><br/>Her whole demeanor is wrong.<br/><br/>”On the contrary,” Berkut says before he can change his mind. “I’ve decided I wish for company.”<br/><br/>Faye stares at him like she thinks she misheard.<br/><br/>”Oh… okay,” she says belatedly, and then smiles. “I know a nice place to sit. I’ll show you.”<br/><br/>Berkut follows behind, and wonders what it means that this isn’t the first time she’d wandered off in the darkness.<br/><br/>Even he never strays far.<br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/><br/>“I found this spot a few weeks ago,” Faye says, sitting down on a log that overlooks a stream. “It’s prettier in the daytime, but it’s more peaceful at night.”<br/><br/>Berkut is tempted to grouse about what an uncomfortable seat a log makes for, but he doesn’t want to sound like a child, so he sucks it up.<br/><br/>”Do you often wander about in the dead of night?”</p><p>”Sometimes,” she says, staring ahead at the stream. The sound of flowing water is the only noise out here beyond their conversation.<br/><br/>He expects her to elaborate, and she does not.<br/><br/>Not in the way he anticipates, that is.<br/><br/>”Did you know I joined the Deliverance so I could be with Alm?”<br/><br/>”You <em>joined a war</em> to follow him around,” Berkut states, aghast.<br/><br/>”Yep. I’d never been in battle or anything, but I’d have been lonely if he left without me.”<br/><br/>What is <em>with </em>this girl?<br/><br/>”It’s miraculous your little commoner band wasn’t wiped out by the first gaggle of bandits you stumbled upon.”<br/><br/>”Sir Mycen taught us a lot,” Faye says. “So we weren’t clueless.”</p><p>“Even then…”<br/><br/>”And then Silque joined us, and she kept everyone healthy with her healing magic,” Faye says. “She saved Alm a few times, and me too. I wasn’t very nice to her at first, though.”<br/><br/>Berkut wonders why she’s telling him this, but he doesn’t feel inclined to stop listening.<br/><br/>He owes her this much, surely.<br/><br/>”I was really rude… I wish I’d been better.”<br/><br/>”You two appear to get on swimmingly now,” Berkut ventures.<br/><br/>”Yeah. She forgave me. She’s that kind of person,” Faye says fondly.<br/><br/>Berkut doesn’t know Silque beyond their brief interaction prior. He can’t say anything to that, though he supposes it must be true.<br/><br/>He doesn’t expect Faye to follow that up with, “I remember the first time I killed someone.”<br/><br/>There’s no fondness in her voice there, and there is no sorrow either. It’s not even matter-of-fact. It’s neutrally conversational.<br/><br/>”That doesn’t surprise me,” Berkut supplies. There are some people who have taken so many lives that their memories are a uniform shade of red. Most people aren’t those people.<br/><br/>Faye continues as if she hadn’t heard him, eyes fixed on the horizon. “People make awful noises when they die. I’d seen livestock get slaughtered, but it’s not the same thing. There was so much blood. I didn’t know people had that much blood inside them. And then it all just stops. The sounds stop, they stop writhing… They go totally still. But he still had his eyes open. I wanted to close them, but there were more bandits coming at us, so we didn’t have time.”<br/><br/>Berkut, of course, remembers the first time he took another person’s life. He has not killed enough people to erase the memory. He had boasted about his accomplishment, and the blood on his lance was like a badge of honor. He thinks his uncle might have been proud. He remembers him smiling, but he’s not sure the recollection is accurate.<br/><br/>He threw up until there was only bile left when no one was looking.<br/><br/>”I almost got killed,” Faye says. “I was just standing there. I didn’t feel like me. Everything was… really far away. I heard Silque tell me to move, but I didn’t understand. Then Alm came to rescue, but that felt like a dream. Not in the fairy-tale way. Just… I didn’t think it was happening.”<br/><br/>”You Zofians are soft,” Berkut says. “And you’re a commoner, no less. You’re more suited to farming than felling.”<br/><br/>This is the only way he knows how to be kind.<br/><br/>Faye seems to understand. Or she just doesn’t care how rude he is.<br/><br/>He can’t tell.<br/><br/>”Sometimes that feeling comes back,” Faye tells him. “That nothing’s real. So I go outside, even in the dark.”<br/><br/>”Seems a reckless thing to do if you haven’t got your bearings,” Berkut says.<br/><br/>”I guess if I got hurt, it’d remind me where I am.”<br/><br/>Anger swells in Berkut’s chest and it surprises even him.<br/><br/>”And<em> that’s</em> all well and good, is it?” he snaps.<br/><br/>She faces him, seeming dazed. “Huh?”<br/><br/>“If you die, <em>then</em> what?”</p><p>“As long as there’s a summoner, we all come back,” she says.<br/><br/>”That isn’t the <em>point</em>,” he snarls. “You aren’t supposed to wander off and die as you please! Would your precious Alm not be devastated even<em> if</em> you came right back?”<br/><br/>Faye winces.<br/><br/>”…You’re right. I know you are. But, I…” She shakes her head. “Don’t you get it? The danger doesn’t feel real. Nothing really does, so…”</p><p>“So your sense of self-preservation doesn’t exist.”<br/><br/>”Um. Basically. Sometimes.”<br/><br/>”What a helpless girl you are,” Berkut says, shaking his head. If Rinea acted like this, he would be beside himself. “You are fortunate to have only encountered me tonight. There are even worse men that walk these castle grounds.”<br/><br/>”You’re pretty hard on yourself.”<br/><br/>Berkut grinds his teeth.<br/><br/>”Should I not be? You know what I have done.”</p><p>“You haven’t done it so far,” she says. “Right now, you’re just keeping me company, even if you’re being a little rude.”<br/><br/>She’s smiling, and he doesn’t get it.</p><p>What good is his company, anyway?<br/><br/>”Forget it. I do not wish to discuss the matter that is myself.”<br/><br/>”That’s okay. There’s a lot of other stuff to talk about.”<br/><br/>”Such as your inability to make rational decisions.”<br/><br/>”…I’d be more mad if you didn’t have a point,” she mutters. “But I don’t think I can fix this. You know how when people go to war, they come back different? The war’s not even over and… I’m already different. I’m going to keep fighting a bunch of battles. I might even die and come back. If anything, it’s just gonna get worse for me. Don’t you think?”<br/><br/>He doesn’t know what to tell her.<br/><br/>She’s probably -- no, she’s absolutely correct.</p><p>She can’t ask the Summoner to send her home. The war still rages there, in a world where they are enemies.<br/><br/>War behind her, war in front of her, and war surrounding all sides.<br/><br/>”It is a pity you were not born in Rigel,” is all Berkut can say. “We could have prepared you for war.”</p><p>“Ram Village is as different from Rigel as can be,” Faye tells him. “I love it there. I want to go back.”<br/><br/>”Then stay alive until you can.”<br/><br/>”…I want to go back, but it won’t be the same, will it? Ram Village won’t have changed, but I have.”<br/><br/>”Your life as a farm girl is over, but the role of a soldier does not suit you,” Berkut says.<br/><br/>”And even I know… I can’t follow Alm forever.”<br/><br/>”Your place in the world is uncertain. Rather like my own.”<br/><br/>To his complete, utter, and absolute surprise, Faye starts laughing.<br/><br/>He thinks she’s gone fully mad before she says, “No way!<em> You</em> just compared yourself to a commoner!”<br/><br/>”I… I did no such thing!” Berkut splutters.<br/><br/>”Yes you did!” she cheers. “I heard it myself!”</p><p>“You misheard!”<br/><br/>Faye just keeps on giggling. Berkut huffs.<br/><br/>”Do not expect a slip of the tongue like that to happen again.”</p><p>“Mhm, okay,” Faye says, grinning. “If we both don’t know what we’re supposed to do, then we can at least be lost together, as friends.”<br/><br/>”Do not say that word.”<br/><br/>”Hmmm? What word? The friend word?”<br/><br/>”Enough!” Berkut says, his intimidation factor marred by the way he’s hiding his face in embarrassment.<br/><br/>”Thanks, Berkut,” she says.<br/><br/>”For <em>what?</em>"<br/><br/>"I feel a little more myself. Maybe you shocked me out of my stupor."<br/><br/>Berkut doubts it's so simple, and he doubts Faye believes it's that simple as well.<br/><br/>Yet, if he could be even a small contributing factor...<br/><br/>If he could do something right for someone, that would be...<br/><br/>He doesn't get to finish his thought.<br/><br/>”Faye, thank the Mother, there you are!” comes a voice from behind. Silque, carrying a lantern, is jogging towards them.<br/><br/>”O-oh, SIlque!” Faye exclaims, hopping to her feet so quickly that she stumbles. Berkut lunges, grabbing her by the wrist before she can slip into the stream.<br/><br/>”Helpless!” he grouses.<br/><br/>”Still rude,” she answers. “But... thanks.”<br/><br/>”Faye, this is why I worry,” says Silque, her brow knit in concern.<br/><br/>”…Sorry,” Faye says, bowing her head in sudden abashment. “I just…”<br/><br/>”I know,” Silque says, resting her hand on Faye’s shoulder. “Forgive me, Faye, I ought not scold you over this. When I think that you might be hurt… I fear I become rather unlike me.”</p><p>“I’m okay,” Faye says, wringing her hands, and Berkut thinks he hardly recognizes this bashful girl. Silque is not the only one unlike herself. “Berkut was my bodyguard tonight.”<br/><br/>”Is that right?” Silque asks, and looks to Berkut.<br/><br/>”My thanks for finally acknowledging my presence,” he says.<br/><br/>”I do apologize,” Silque says.<br/><br/>”And I am no bodyguard. I happened upon her. That is all.”</p><p>“He’s not bad company,” Faye chimes in. “We should invite him to lunch sometime!”</p><p>“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Silque tells her.<br/><br/>Incredible. He’s being ignored again. Commoners have no manners.<br/><br/>He’ll deign to overlook it.<br/><br/>”Do you think you can sleep yet, Faye?” SIlque asks.<br/><br/>”Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can. But, um…”</p><p>“Yes?”<br/><br/>”…Would you mind if I stayed in your room again?”<br/><br/>”Not at all. Truth be told, I sleep better when you’re there.”<br/><br/>Berkut wonders if this is a conversation he’s supposed to be hearing. He clears his throat.<br/><br/>”I didn’t forget you,” Faye assures him, playfully chiding.<br/><br/>”You had better not dare,” he says, and finds he means it more than he thought he would.<br/><br/>”Thanks again, Berkut,” she says, and this time it’s with a warm smile. “<em>You</em> had better show up for lunch.”<br/><br/>”I do not recall agreeing to this.”</p><p>“I don’t recall you not agreeing.”<br/><br/>”Go to sleep, you pest. Enough of my night has been eaten up by you already.”<br/><br/>”Okay. But you’ve got to sleep too. Someone told me it’s dangerous out here in the dark all by yourself.”<br/><br/>He simply can’t believe this girl.</p><p>“Night, Berkut!” she says, waving at him as she and Silque make to depart.<br/><br/>”Goodnight, Lord Berkut,” Silque says.</p><p>Berkut does not answer, watching them go until the lantern’s light is a dim glow and their chatter is lost to the wind.<br/><br/>Faye will wander again.<br/><br/>He wouldn’t terribly mind if he happened to cross her path again.<br/><br/>If he made a habit of it, even.<br/><br/>There are dangerous, evil things in the dark.<br/><br/>He would like to be the lesser evil.</p>
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